It's been mentioned in various threads that after level 40 it can be hard to know where to go to steadily gain experience, especially as a solo player. I'd like to ask for consolidated feedback in this thread so that we can look at these issues in game and zero in on the areas that need the most attention. Please call out zones in this level range that you feel could use some help, either because what's there isn't very fun or interesting, or because there's decent stuff to do but just not enough of it, or quests don't flow especially well from hub to hub. Our first look will be at the level 40 to 50 zones, but feedback on 50 to 55 content is appreciated as well. Thanks!
Old Targonor Keep could definitely use some help. It is a fantastic dungeon filled with challenging mobs and what appears to be several key rooms, yet there simply is no reason for anyone to go down there (except for the Monocle). Even a brief quest-line with one or two rewards would be very welcome. Yes, I am aware of the quests given in the Arhklight Abbey, but I have yet to see someone complete them properly (without any tricks/cheats).
I'm gonna echo Sinisna and say Old Targonor. It could be such a great dungeon, but because of no quests and some weirdness up top like 2 dot mobs feeling more like 3 or 4 dots and giving 2 dot exp, no one really goes there to exp. Raksasha Citadel in Sunset Pointe is another. It doesn't really need any work, it's a great place, just no one ever goes there. There is no quest that takes you there, so you have to know about it. Plus it's so far out there, it's a pain to get a group together and over to it in a reasonable amount of time. Would be nice to maybe see the Xennumet access quest continue on to Raksasha Citadel. Maybe the gnomes could teleport you there to make it an easier trip.
my level 41 monk is currently working planes of anguish (having bounced over from beranid hills. I could have gone to razad and worked my way into tricksters (I probably will go there next). From there i tend to drift to Rahz Inkur and Afrit. Eventually winding up in Sands of Sorrow. I guess i dont mind spending several levels in the sand.
40-50 I soloed in POA, RI, Swamps and spent a lot of time in Afrit. I did get in to a few groups here and there.
Sinisna is right- Old Targonor could really use a lot of love. As she said, add in some good questlines that will make people want to get the items in there. My biggest problem with OT is the fact that the top level mobs are so scattered all over the place without any real reason. There are 100's of undead, it's a nightmare to try and solo without causing massive trains. The top needs to be cleaned up, and the bottom needs significant questlines. Make it like greystone- people love to go there and can do the whole quest line in a day.
Years ago, there were plans to further the quest-line (and subsequent rewards) for Rakshasa Citadel, as well as to include Old Targonor in another. Nothing was done about them unfortunately, and two quest-lines remain unfinished to this day: If work is going to be done in either of those areas, it would be nice to also implement quests that restore these items to their original power.
Moorgard, here is another problem I was just thinking about with the L40 zones (Especially with higher zones that are 45-50). The most important thing is to get people to want to go there. For instance, swamp armor is completely ignored now, why? It's simple, it's the POTA affect, there's no reason to grind armor from L 43-50 when you know you'll eventually end up in POTA grinding that. The items should be unique for whatever zone you end up revamping, if it is Old Targ, make it challenging and rewarding. Where people would want to go there all of the time.
well guess 50 is the high end of the spectrum for Thelaseen, but i really fell that this place was never worth the effcort, its quite dificult to get good pulls, and the dragons are quite powerfull for the exp they give. i usually give this place a wide berth. Tricksters haven in razad is one of my favorite 40+ dungeons, but i really feel like the quest rewards (and the summoned named loot) could use a bit of a tweak. Lost canyon is another place that has good 40+ content but generally gets forgotten, the solo/duo quits might be a bit too grindy.
lost canyon is definitely a place that could use some love since only bards and rogues get anything useful out of the zone.
Theres a mass of content in that level range, but alot of it is group content with not a lot of encouraging questlines or rewards. Vault of the Hidden - no quests involving this massive dungeon except the gems which the brownies are interested in and some random event that always bugs out anyways. Rakshasa Citadel - Ring reward is less then rewarding as Sinisna has pointed out. Islands of Madness - no quests to encourage groups to venture to another brilliant dungeon. Xennumet - End event is extremely buggy and again the reward is terrible for the effort put in. Dungeon Keepers Lair - no quests to encourage players to venture into this otherwise UNKNOWN dungeon. Lost Canyon - an interesting area, with a decent story but rarely used. Old Targonor - again very little quests, other than the griffon line and collection quests to encourage players to venture there The list goes on. Theres content there, and a lot of it, but most of it is either not finished or half finished. 50-55 is another story, there is still a large gap in content for this level range, especially solo and small group content. The current dungeons for the level range are also lacking in finess, such as Vi'rak and Bridge of Destiny. These dungeons should have an itemization parse to match what was done to the other dungeons. I am also one of the players that would love to see APW utilised to bridge the 50-55 content gap, in making a shard (or 2) into an elite wing that was designed for groups. Entrance wing being 51-53, marina 53+basement 54-56 etc. Providing more content for adventurers to use as leveling grounds It would also be nice to see the Salamander storyline continued with some of the other Vi'Rak dungeons revamped to match that of Vi'Rak Lair in Vol Tuniel. It would also be great to continue the Ulvari story in Kojan... All this ontop of Pankor and Stiirhad
There is a mass of group and solo content at 40+. Some of the best solo areas are: - Plains of Anguish - Perfect for solo and small group, quite a few quests, some decent reward but loot could use a tweak - Razad - Mainly solo and small group content - Temple of Tehatamani - A lot of solo, small group, full group content - Rahz Inkur - 45 - 50, some solo, mainly full group - Afrit - some solo, mainly boring repeated kill quests - Nusibe Necropolis - Outside repeated kill quests - Deadbog / Swamps - Quite a lot of solo content Swamps of Rumug / Fallen Cove / Mnalus Lair - A lot of solo, small group, a little full group - River Palace / Seawatch Coast / Dragon's Backbone - Lot's of solo and small group quests - Lost Canyon - A lot of solo and small group quests, rarely used Group areas are: - Nusibe Necropolis (Deep in) - Great and challenging dungeon, overall quest line could be added to, no one really does the afrit weapon quest anymore - Temple of Tehatamani - Temple flips and faction grinds - Greystone - Good level 40 dungeon - Sunset Pointe (Rakshasa Citadel) - Great dungeon, reasonable quest line, could use a better end reward, some more quests, more pointers to go there - Islands of Madness / Xennumet - Fix the All Father event - Trickster's Haven - Reasonably good quest series - Old Targonor - Only used mainly by high levels for the Griffon quest So rather than going around mass changing this content i'd perhaps have some way of letting new players know where they can go to access this stuff. I don't know. Maybe have a guy stand next to the riftways so that you can ask them where to go next as you level up?
Oh. How about reseting Ceros island to the way it was originally. Was actually kinda fun back in the day and a lot of quests there. edit was originally a mid 40's zone with mobs all over and a bunch of named roaming as well. Now it's empty except for Zodifin and a smaller island with an empty quest hub
This thread is awesome! The solution is to just sticky this and everyone can go explore these "unknown" dungeons! Keep the newer people busy for days!
This was one of the most terrible zone designs ever, and i still believe whoever decided to make ceros isle part of 4 chunks should be rushed to the hospital luckily there is no content on it anymore
I think as some of you had pointed out here. The biggest problem with some of the 40 to 50+ zones is that a lot of them are really incomplete. I can totally see some of the game designers that originally were working on some of these zones getting C blocked because of what happened to Sigil games blowing up. The all father event is a good example, and multiple questlines that were kinda thrown around but never finished. I feel bad for Moogard's team right now, reality is they could actually do ZERO development on the game and just fix bugs and performance enhancements for the next 10+ months.
Random bullet points from a lvl 55 newbie that just recently went through the leveling hell that is 40-55. The real vets here know much better than I do, but maybe the newbie perspective offers something to the conversation..... ~ VT and Thel are cool dungeons, but the grind is rough and takes too long. If you build out the full CW armor and weapon sets, you've out-leveled a bunch of other content. ~ late Thel is very cool. The towers where you fight down to the bottom and summon various named golems is pretty epic, but could really use a major overhaul in itemization to make it worthwhile. Not many people know these boss events exist which is a shame because they are pretty cool. ~ DT weapon needs a major stat boost to make it worthwhile, and maybe the overall dungeon could use a bump. This place gets overlooked because the prevailing trend is to do VT/Thel and as mentioned above, people just outlevel right past DT because the current pulls them down the golden path of least resistance. ~ PoA and Graystone are pretty solid "as is" IMO. Dungeon grind isn't too oppressive, and plenty of solo / small group stuff in the area. ~ same goes for Trickster's and the solo / small group quests in the region (Afrit /Razad); plenty to do in the region and it's relatively straight forward ~ Dragon's Backbone (solo quests) / Isle of Madness (small group) / Xennumet (full group) / Rakshasa Citadel (full group) is amazing content but this whole region is just a little disjointed. The whole area is just lacking good flow / cohesiveness. Rakshasa ring needs to be returned to it's former glory. But maybe implement some grand overarching quest chain here that requires you to visit / kill stuff in all of these dungeons for cash and prizes. Great area that is under utilized. ~ my Bard was fortunate enough to have some great friends help him through the Mask of Feral Warrior quest chain in Lost Canyon and I had an absolute blast. Most players can't even find the Lost Canyon riftway for good reason; there's no reason to come out there unless you are a Bard or Rogue. Add choice to the rewards: Mask of Feral Healer, Mask of Feral Caster, Mask of Feral Tank, etc. and you've just opened up this entire area to the rest of the player base. ~ Rhaz Inkur = too big, too many quests, too many annoying mobs that can't be cc'd, totally changes group dynamics. RI helm chain is crazy long and annoying. Personally I like the area and dungeon a lot, but most people just don't bother with RI while leveling. It seems like RI was an end game dungeon back when level cap was 50 that was never appropriately watered down to become a dungeon on the regular leveling path. IMO, this dungeon needs to get pushed one way or the other: make it easier and more accessible if you want people to actually go there while leveling, or push up the difficulty to Vi'Rak levels and juice the rewards. ~ Swamp Armor, ML, Heg = really cool stuff all over this region, swamp armor just takes WAY too long. This grind needs to be cut in half. Higher drop rates, higher respawn rates on nameds, way more faction per kill or way less required. Or all of the above. ~ ToT = super awesome. ~ NN = super awesome dungeon, no one ever goes here (except for ambassador). I still need to go in here to finish upgrading my lucent medal from final heroic version to legendary but no one knows how to do it or where to go. ~ OT = went there once to help someone with Griffon quest, I won't ever go there ever again unless you make it worth my while. The dots are all there, you guys just need to connect them and make the leveling experience from 40-55 a little more streamlined and less painful.
PoA, Dragons Backbone and Razad are the only ones that features a great quest hub and doing every single quest in those 3 zones will not even get you close to 50 unless you have a ton of rested exp or are stacking 100%, 50% and 25% xp pots for every second you are running around in them. Lost Canyon is ok but outside of the desperate need for exp in this level range there is no real reason to go there. Deadbog is honestly really bad and contains maybe a handful of quests. RI/Afrit area has little content for solo players outside of grinding for little to no reward. Swamps is again another grind for questionable gear trap much like CW. River Palace and Seawatch content is mid to high 30s at best. You could just grind on the Lucent rep in the Tehatamni area but it just feels awkward after having some really great questing areas and than suddenly nothing. Most of the solo 40+ content after PoA, DB and Razad just feels very grindy or not worth your time doing. It isn't really all that easy putting groups together to do the group quests in these areas either. I'd leave Plains of Anguish alone as it is one of the best quest hubs in the game and has quite a few decent rewards from quests and the "boss" mobs (Mayor, Crier, etc). Razad has a nice amount of quests but the repeatable quests that provide tokens should lead to decent rewards instead of the ones that they do now. Dragons Backbone is a great place but maybe up the drop rate of the shards needed for the Xenn tech items as you can complete the entire area and walk away with not a single one of them. Lost Canyon has some quests in it several more quests could be added to the area as there as quite a few mob types that are mixed in with the ones you get quests to kill that serve to purpose other than to annoy you. Also adding rewards to the bard/rog mask quest for other classes would be really nice as it is a pretty decent quest chain but can be hard to convince others to come along with you on it. The areas for the swamp armor factions could have the rep and drop rates upped as mentioned above. The armor really isn't worth the grind and while you can upgrade it the difference between the normal and upgraded armors really isn't that big (seriously its like 2-3 stat points). You could keep the grind if you made the pieces best in slot till 50 or maybe have some decent set bonuses on them. Afrit rewards could likewise be better than what they are now. The mobs outside of RI could be toned down so that the quests involving them would be more solo and small group friendly. That would open up quite a bit more content for people. As someone who has only been playing for a month it really just feels like you could take all of the Group and harder small group quests in the game (outside of dungeons) and make them easier while upgrading the grindy content to provide actual GOOD rewards and add several quests in a few places to solve the problems people are having and make the game experience flow much better. I'm not suggesting that to do so would be an easy task to accomplish but I believe it is definitely something worth looking into. I'm not saying to dumb the game down but I just don't understand why there is so much group quest content (outside of dungeons) when there are not that many groups running quests.
The biggest issue is, POTA just outshines pretty much everything in the game right now. People seem to just get back with hunter's league/Celestine ward armor until they can get to L 50 and get to POTA. To me this creates a problem.
I believe that Rahz Inkur is the best 'dungeon' in the game. The quests send you to all points to eliminate all mobs, each mob type has a named, the questlines are challenging and rewarding. This area is supposed to be a challenging small group / large group area and should remain as it is.
